‘General guidance on personal security measures’ was a Met Police booklet, now a 1982 police file, MEPO 4/503 at the National Archives at Kew in west London, that you can download freely or view online. Its advice still looks sound, although (if only by what’s not described) it paints a picture of a simpler, less technical world.
The document drew (as its unnamed authors acknowledged) on hard-won learning by police faced by Irish republican violence – the 30 years of near civil war in Northern Ireland then had no end in sight. Covered is how to secure yourself (if you’re a police or prison officer, or politician, or anyone that Irish republican terrorists might regard as a target), and your children, whether about the home, or in your car on your way to work.
A sense of nostalgia may creep over the older reader, recalling a time without mobile phone or internet; when the most you had were a fixed line ‘telephone’, radio and television. While at the outset the booklet claimed to be based on ‘commonsense’, it did have a sound underpinning of theory, such as that ‘security measures should be commensurate with the threat’. While not spelt out, that meant it was as unnecessary to turn your life physically and mentally into a fortress, as it was dangerous to dismiss the likelihood of facing a car bomb or assassination. The booklet gave the still sound advice that it’s ‘impossible to remain on ‘red alert’ for 24 hours’. That said, in capital letters the advice was to ‘always think before you act’. Because while you might not be able to avoid coming under attack, at least you could avoid being taken by surprise.
The two things you were supposed to keep thinking about was whether you were following a set routine (which an attacker could then anticipate, and lie in wait) and when might you be vulnerable to an attack (while driving to work from home, for example, if you always took the same route, at the same time).
One of the signs of a different way of life was the advice, if you were going away from home for days, to ‘cancel deliveries of milk, bread and newspapers’, which indeed would tell burglars, too, that your home was unoccupied.
Partly, the advice was to adopt what we might call a security frame of mind; when cancelling the delivery at the newsagent, not to say so loudly that others might over-hear, and be suspicious of any callers. When in public, be ‘as inconspicuous as possible’. Partly, physical security – such as, ‘fit strong door chains on all outer doors – AND USE THEM’; and don’t leave a key under the mat or any such obvious place. Partly, the principles of security through environmental design. In the garden, on the boundary encourage trees or shrubs, growing high enough that someone outside can’t see into your home (and if you are using the ‘telephone’, don’t be near a window where you could be seen outdoors). Nearer the home, trim shrubs so that any attacker can’t conceal themselves.
Hints in the booklet show that the advice was for the VIP – if you are regularly chauffeured, change your position in the car from time to time (presumably to make it harder for an assassin, or kidnapper-for-ransom). Part of the 20 or so pages are given over to searching any car for a ‘booby trap’; hence advice to keep your car doors and boot locked at all times (in the days before electronic locking, and one click of a fob looking all doors).
While social media abuse is a bane of 21st century life, in the 1980s the equivalent was ‘threatening, insulting or crank letters’ through the post. The booklet advised that postal bombs ‘may be sent in envelopes no thicker than a quarter of an inch’ (the author was clearly still in a frame of mind fo Imperial, not decimal measurements). The booklet succinctly went through what to watch for – a ‘foreign’ postmark that you didn’t usually get mail from? A stain, that might come from ‘sweating’ explosives? Also you might get anonymous, threatening telephone calls (‘usually intended to lower your morale’), perhaps from a call-box (the advice was to note any background noise, such as music or ‘railway station or dockland sounds’). The booklet advised ‘care and vigilance’ and if in doubt, call 999.
Photo by Mark Rowe.
